Color revolutions are political term used to describe turbulent political events: mass street protests and riots in order to achieve a revolutionary change of government. Some revolutionary upheavals are successful and some remain only attempts. However, so far they have taken place in a number of countries at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century.
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Regime change has been an important feature of US foreign policy for decades, beginning with the overthrow of the Syrian government in 1949. Since then, it has been estimated that the CIA has overthrown or attempted to overthrow over 50 governments, although it has admitted only 7 cases. Color revolutions are an integral part of US foreign policy that seeks regime change in hostile countries.
In addition to the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon and various US and domestic non-governmental organizations are most often engaged. In the last decade, a long list of countries with relatively stable political systems experienced colorful revolutions. Somewhere they were more and somewhere less successful: Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, China, Iran, Venezuela. The regime change scenarios in all these countries show striking similarities.
The same patterns are persistently repeated, which cannot be mere coincidence. Egypt and Ukraine are very different, but the January 25 revolution in Egypt in 2011 and the Euromaidan revolution in 2014 are so similar that even the behavior of the revolutionaries was the same: moderate Islamists in Egypt and radical nationalists in Ukraine.
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Three phases of color revolutions
According to Gene Sharp, an American expert on non-violent struggle and a kind of father of colored revolutions, colored revolutions are led by the principle that power structures (the government) rely on their subjects (the people) – the obedience of the people enables the rulers to rule the country. If the subordinates do not submit to the authorities, the authorities lose their power in the state. According to Sharp, classical color revolutions consist of three stages. The first stage includes the creation of an “underground” movement of cells that together form a network of those dissatisfied with the ruling regime. Members are recruited with big slogans and calls to action. A network of mostly young disaffected suddenly leaves anonymity and appears on the streets of big cities in response to a certain signal. The protests want to present themselves as something spontaneous, but in fact everything was prepared earlier.
Most often, protests erupt due to some reason, such as the questionable irregularity of elections (Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, Russia 2012), a shocking and unexpected event, for example, the self-immolation of a seller in Tunisia in 2010, or Ukraine’s delay in the implementation of the Association Agreement EU 2013. Members of underground cells become the initiators of the rebellion. Protests, gatherings, marches, setting up fences follow. The people realize that the government may be legal but it is illegitimate and forms an anti-government movement that becomes the driving force of the future revolutionary regime change. Of course, the initiators of the protest do everything carefully and organize the majority who really believe in the proclaimed ideals. People wouldn’t be so rampant in the streets knowing they were tools in the hands of the CIA or MI6. A political crowd forms and protests last for days or weeks in the main city squares.
In the second stage, the goal is to discredit defense, security and law and order bodies through strikes, civil disobedience, riots and sabotage. Protesters are occupying city squares and streets that they do not want to leave until their demands are met. The protestors are organized by the logistics network. In the name of the masses, the protesters give an ultimatum to the government and threaten mass uprisings if they are not satisfied. The government has two choices: retaliate with force or accept the demands. The third and final phase follows, which entails the “non-violent” overthrow of the government. In fact, it is about open attacks on authorities and the occupation of government buildings, institutions and other components or symbols of government. A kind of civil assault on the “organism” of the existing political order. If the government strikes the protesters with force, the media will accuse it of crimes and killing peaceful protesters, while if it agrees to concessions, it will be swept away very quickly because the protesters will not agree to compromises.
